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What I Learned About Letting Go of Your Loved One Letting Go of Hunger
Navigating the abyss of food, love, and loss
Much of life revolves around food.
Cultures and rituals are built around it, and love is expressed through it.
Hunger is the first thing we rule out when babies cry, with our first and primal instinct is to feed them.
In many cultures, love is often not spoken but shown through the offering of food.
In Chinese, instead of saying, I love you, we ask, Have you eaten?
When I visit NYC, my aunties would travel from Queens to Brooklyn, just to bring me a home cooked meal to carry onto my five-hour bus ride back to Washington, DC.
My cousins, acting like sherpas, drop off zongzi (粽子)—sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves—from household to household, ensuring that we all have enough to eat during the Dragon Boat Festival, celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th month of the lunar calendar.
Even when traveling within the boroughs of NYC, my mom brings an orange in her handbag, ready to fend off even the slightest pang of hunger.
That is why, when my father stopped eating in his final days, it was hard for us to accept that food, once so central to our…
